


A Study of Age and Time

by Kritterrat



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Young John Watson
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 01:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13582770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kritterrat/pseuds/Kritterrat
Summary: John is the last of a war-torn Britain, a Britain where Moriarty won, and Sherlock had lost. In a last-ditch effort to save his home, John is sent back to the night of the Lady in Pink's murder. Only, he is at least two heads shorter, a couple stones lighter, and without his memories of the past. How can he save someone he can't rightly remember? Much less an entire nation?





	1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Just Formalities Between a Soldier and the British Government**

“Ready?” Mycroft’s voice crackled through the speaker just behind John’s head.

“ Yes,” John replied, brisk and to the point. Sighing, John shifted back into the chair trying to relax as Mycroft’s voice sounded from the speaker, the voice devoid of any true sentiment or feeling, just formalities sort of voice. The voice John had become to know as Mycroft’s professional tone. The tone he used for people who Mycroft strongly believed were in incredible peril. The voice that had erased all traces of emotion after that day. The voice didn’t lie, they were in extreme peril.

“I would remind you of the dangers of this experiment, but you know them as well as I. Safe travels, it’s been... a pleasure.” John could imagine the tight smile that went along with that statement. The smile that Mycroft and Sherlock had just for the public eye. Just for formalities in a world driven by emotion rather than logic. Just for formalities between what was left of the British Government and it’s soldier. As Mycroft held that tight smile John, unrepressed and driven to emotion, let his tears gather around his closed eyes.

John cleared his throat pushing the com button, “Right, I’ll be seeing you soon then.” If this works correctly tacks itself into the radio static between them. The machine began to whirl and John gripped the edges of his seat almost hoping it wouldn’t work, and then what? So they could all die through slow starvation underground? No. The whole of himself wished it would work and he’d never ever had to collaborate with Mycroft’s schemes ever again. Shaking himself from his thoughts John opened his eyes, ready to face whatever was next after this. Whether it be death for all or the salvation of most. He waited, to be thrown into the world he had lived in that time. One where he had just returned from Afghanistan and in need a flatmate.

Suddenly he was jerked forward and electrifying pain burst behind his eyes and surged throughout his body. The pressure built around him in spouts of highs and lows. Until POP and the ringing in his ears began. He tried to move, to scream, but all that came to his lips was the quivering whisper of nothingness and a name that he hadn’t called for in over twenty years.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lady gurgled and moaned, “r-ach-rachell” gripping John’s smaller hand in hers.

**Chapter 2: The Game is On!**

Two voices spoke in the dark, the woman was crying and a man delighted with her plight. 

 

“I win, sorry love, unlucky stuff that is.” calm footsteps faded as the woman began to audibly choke.  John scrambled forward. He needed to help her, he needed to save her. Groping forward, finally, he came across the burning skin of her hand. 

 

“I’m a doctor miss, squeeze my hand if you can hear me,” John ordered, well as much as he could with a voice of a child. Nonetheless, the lady squeezed his hand as he pushed her into the recovery position. He was small he realised, much smaller than he remembered, but that didn’t matter now: she did, he was trying to save her. Her pulse was erratic and her temperature continued to climb. She needed hospital, quickly. “Do you have a mobile? I'm going to search your pockets. Stay with me.” John began to search through the damp raincoat. 

 

The lady gurgled and moaned, “r-ach-rachell” gripping John’s smaller hand in hers. 

 

John gripped her hand back, “Hi Rachel, I’m John. You need to go to hospital, can you tell me where your phone is?” The woman shook her head and gripped his hand harder.

 

“Nghh no--rachel-” she choked and slurred as her eyes fluttered closed and she slumped into the old rotting floor.  He began heart compressions in vain, she was dead, he knew it but he couldn’t help but try. She would have wanted it, not the lady before him but one which he couldn’t seem to place.

 

He sat there while her hand had become cold and two teens had walked in and then left screaming. He had a sense that he should leave, though he couldn’t say where to. So he waited. The night crept on with torches, officer jackets, and a pair of strong arms that plucked John from the ground and carried him outside.  They were all talking to him, questions and comforting words. All he wanted was to go home, well, wherever home was. 

 

For his troubles, they gave him an orange shock blanket and asked him about his parents. John looked at them baffled, what had they to do with anything? He waited, though he felt fine, he was at a loss of how he ended up here. With feet, hands, and stature of a child.  They were waiting for Lestrade and his department to show up. Least that’s what the policeman (who had carried him outside) had said over twenty minutes ago. What John would do for a cuppa. 

 

Another grueling ten minutes and the grey-haired DI showed up, and disappeared into the house. They wouldn’t be taking him home anytime soon he realised. Especially since he couldn’t even tell them where his home was to begin with. John swung his legs to and fro, if he could jump off the edge of this then perhaps he could leave and give his statement another time. He had been waiting long enough, twenty years to long he might add, though it didn’t make sense it sounded right. Looking around he saw no one was really watching him. The paramedics were in the front of the van conversing and the police officer had followed Lestrade inside (interested in a promotion no doubt). John threw the orange blanket onto the street and jumped. Swathed in a jumper much too big and without shoes he ran out into the concrete jungle of London.  

  
  


Sherlock took the stairs two at a time to reach the door where the latest victim was found. “What’s new Lestrade?” his voice cut through the quiet shuffling of the forensic crew, “You wouldn’t have texted if there wasn’t something new.”  The haggard form of Lestrade stood over a body, covered in pink. 

 

“Right, so there was a kid in the room, an eyewitness. He’s missing now. I need you to find him. We think maybe the killer is after him. This is Jennifer Wilson is--” 

 

Sherlock’s eyes scanned the room, “Boring”, he trilled.  The lady in pink, however, was not. Snapping his gloves on he pounced into the field of data that surrounded him. She was married, 10+ years unhappily. She came to London from somewhere for a night. An affair one of many. She is a reporter or had a desk job her manicured hands spoke. Thoughts shot off into the damp darkness of the room too fast to comprehend. “Where’s her bag?” 

 

Lestrade, per usual, looked lost, “OH Come on!” Sherlock shouted, it was all so obvious, “She’s unhappily married, her ring polished on the inside but not the out. Why? Because the only polishing it gets it when she’s wringing it off her finger. Why would she do that? Affairs a string of them.  She was spending the night, so a little roller bag. Look at the skid marks on her legs. Mud.” He wiped his hand along the side her shoulders. “It was raining from where she came from. Her coat is wet but her umbrella is dry, so she wasn’t able to use it, too windy” Sherlock jumped up blood rushing through him, looking through the weather app. The game was on.  

 

“Cardiff! She was from Cardiff.” He clarified for Lestrade, mouth left open in a stream of silent questions. “So where is her suitcase? Hmm?” Sherlock demanded. 

“Are you just making this up?” Lestrade crossed his arms in disbelief. Sherlock glared. How many times had they been down this road before?

 

“Case. Right,” Lestrade bellowed down the staircase “We are looking for a suitcase! Has anyone seen it?” Sherlock bounded back down the steps and stopped. Lestrade began to follow him.

 

“They take the pills themselves, chew, swallow the pills themselves. There are clear signs even you lot couldn’t miss them.” Sherlock said putting his hands together in subdued glee.

 

“Right, yeah, thanks. And?” Lestrade called out after him.

 

“It’s murder, all of them. They’re not suicides they're killings, serial killings. We’ve got ourselves a serial killer. Love those.” He continued down, “Always hard, always have to wait till they make a mistake.”

 

“What? We can’t wait!”

 

“We don’t have to, Houston we have a mistake, just look, really look at her!”

 

“ Sherlock, what mistake?” Lestrade yelled down the banister.

 

“PINK!” Sherlock shouted back exasperated striding toward the door.

 

She was in the recovery position… why? He paused in the doorway of the house. Had he tried to revive her? Why? He was killing her. If so why not call an ambulance? Why? She couldn’t have maneuvered herself, the other victims hadn’t, so why her? There was something  Lestrade had said… what was it.  A kid. Sherlock rushed back up the stairs and back into the room. How was that even possible? Interesting...ohh this was good, very good.

 

“No no no no, you had your turn it's time for us professionals now.” Anderson protested standing to block Sherlock. Sherlock rolled his eyes and pushed past. 

 

“What did you say before, about a child?” Sherlock asked Lestrade.

 

Lestrade uncrossed his arms and took out his mobile, “Yeah, we think he was in the room when it happened, poor bloke. I’ll send you the report. I didn’t see him myself they lost track of him, must’ve run off, before I got--” Lestrade looked up. Only he and Anderson were in the room now.  Somehow he knew he shouldn’t be surprised. Some part of that feeling, however, was coming from the exasperated look Anderson was giving him “Oh shove off, Anderson, we’ve got a murderer to catch.”

Sherlock stepped into a cab smirking. This might just be interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is brought in part to you by viewers like you! So Thank You!- PBS probably 
> 
> But really thanks for reading :)


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